A group of US representatives plan to introduce legislation that will legalize marijuana and allow states to legislate its use, pro-marijuana groups said Wednesday.The legislation would limit the federal government's role in marijuana enforcement to cross-border or inter-state smuggling, and allow people to legally grow, use or sell marijuana in states where it is legal.The bill, which is expected to be introduced on Thursday by Republican Representative Ron Paul and Democratic Representative Barney Frank, would be the first ever legislation designed to end the federal ban on marijuana.Sixteen of the 50 states as well as the District of Columbia have legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

I am no longer a pot smoker (I stopped well before I got out of High School and joined the Army over 20 years ago). I fully believe that the "War on Drugs" has failed and would like to see this to go further.

That being said, Republicans and Democrats in general don't support the ending of the Drug War. This action has sealed Ron Paul to defeat, not that I thought he had much of a chance anyway.

Alcohol is "bad"Tobacco is "bad"Spending billions of dollars on a policy that only makes the situation worse is also bad.

I have been saying for years, take the profit motive out of it and the drug problem will start going away very quickly. Why would someone sell drugs if they couldn't make any money doing it? If someone could get their intoxicant from the government for cheap (or hell, free if they would attend some sort of class about what the drugs did to the body...) then the amount of drug related crime would drop dramatically. The amount of money required to prevent, prosecute, and punish would drop dramatically.

Would we probably have a "lost group" of people that would abuse the system? Yes. Do we already have a "lost group" of people that have wasted their life on drug addiction? Yes. Why can't we get in front of this and stop new people from getting hooked?

Hey, I ain't disagreeing. There are some huge incentives to overhaul our drug policy. But that doesn't change the fact that without a strong reason why people should actually use drugs (hi, medical marijuana), people won't be motivated to force a change.

Again, it's not that I think the status quo is the best case. This is just a comment on the nature of politics and group decision-making.

I think the current effort is the right idea. If it's an illegal drug, then it'll stay illegal -- but if it's medicine, that's another story. Technically, possessing oxycodone without a prescription is illegal, too, and you used to need a prescription for a lot of drugs that are over-the-counter now.